Matt Zemek
 | UCLA Wire
Gene Bartow is not a UCLA basketball legend. Any coach who fails to win a national championship for the Bruins cannot be viewed as part of the Mount Rushmore of UCLA basketball coaches. Yet, what prevents Bartow from being viewed as one of the greatest UCLA coaches ever is not the actual quality of the work he did. The lack of longevity is what changes the conversation surrounding Bartow.
It is incredibly difficult to be a coach who immediately follows a legend. Bartow took on that weighty responsibility when he succeeded John Wooden at UCLA following the Wizard of Westwood’s retirement. Bartow stepped into the position occupied by arguably the greatest basketball coach of all time, a man who won 10 national championships in a 12-year period. It is hard to wrap the mind around the challenge Bartow faced in 1975, when he came to Los Angeles. He didn’t fare poorly, but he also didn’t relish the position he inhabited once he realized what he was up against, as this article notes:
“Gene Bartow was an excellent college basketball coach. He was one of Wooden’s victims in national championship games, having led Memphis State to the final of the 1973 NCAA Tournament. Bartow validated this choice when he guided the 1976 Bruins to the Final Four. UCLA didn’t lose to a school it should have defeated; the Bruins lost to Indiana, the last college basketball team to win a national championship without losing a game. Bartow’s acumen was never in question; handling the pressure, expectations and scrutiny of being Wooden’s successor was the issue. Bartow never embraced that intense spotlight, so he left to build a program entirely from scratch at Alabama-Birmingham.”
Bartow stepped away from UCLA after just two seasons. He made a Final Four and clearly showed he could maintain a high standard at UCLA. He just didn’t want to deal with the understandable runaway expectations which existed.
Gene Bartow is a unique example of a coach who didn’t necessarily fail on the job, but nevertheless won’t be remembered as a giant at a particular school where he worked. One Final Four in two years is pretty good; UCLA fans simply wished Bartow would have been willing to stay in Westwood for a few more seasons.